Watching a Train Wreck, Part 1
Effect Measure suggests that the current NIH problems have arisen because new NIH funds led to more grad students and postdocs, and these people are now applying for grants. Is this right?
First off, did the NIH budget doubling lead to more graduate students? Almost certainly.
Back in the 1970s, when the bottom first fell out of the PhD job market, a number of people were working on complicated models of PhD production to explain what happened. None of them worked very well. Richard Freeman came along and supplied the missing ingredient. Freeman observed that economics predicts that people's decisions to pursue graduate education should be based in part on financial considerations. People weigh their long term prospects as, say, a PhD physicist against alternative possibilities (e.g. investment banker / software engineer / other quantitatively-oriented careers). When prospects are good for physics PhDs relative to the alternatives, more people enroll in physics PhD programs. When prospects are bad (again, relative to the alternatives), fewer people enroll.
Now I'm sure that many people will object, "Money was not a consideration in *my* decision to pursue a PhD! I am doing it for the love of science / truth / rats!" That may be so. Freeman is not suggesting that everyone is motivated primarily by economic considerations -- it's a subtler argument:
Imagine that people's desire to pursue graduate studies lies on a continuum. On one end are people who will pursue a PhD in their chosen field no matter what, even if it leads to a life of miserable penury (the fact that English PhDs continue to be minted is proof that these people exist). On the other end are people who will never ever pursue a PhD under any circumstances. Somewhere in the middle are people who could go one way or the other. It's these people for whom economic considerations hold the most sway. That is not to say that money is a prime motivator even for these folks; rather, there may be stronger motivators pulling in opposite directions, and financial considerations are just the tie-breaker. Regardless, when Freeman included economic considerations into a simple model of physics PhD production, the predictions were spot on. (Here's Freeman's paper)
So do Freeman's ideas continue to have predictive power? The presence of foreign students complicates things (Freeman did his work in the early 70's when there were a lot fewer foreign students), but they are still important.
The NIH budget doubling almost certainly made prospects for PhD life / health scientists look a whole lot brighter. However, we must also consider these prospects relative to alternative choices for prospective life scientists over the doubling period (1998-2003). Given the changes in the 90's in the way health care is paid for, I'd guess that medical school is not as attractive as it once was. And the economy as a whole, particularly the tech sector, underwent a slowdown in 2001. Better prospects for PhD life scientists coupled with worse prospects for alternatives should mean an increase in enrollments. Sure enough, life sciences enrollments started increasing quite rapidly as of 2002.
We can see a similar pattern in the first-year enrollment data below for other S&E fields. For example, in math / CS / engineering / physical sciences, we see a peak in the early 1990s (presumably relating to the NSF's PhD shortage predictions in the late 1980s). There is then a decline (poor job market for PhDs coupled with a tech sector boom), then a rise again as the academic market improved in the late 1990s and the tech sector slowed in 2000-2001.
So getting back to our original question of whether new graduate enrollments have led to the current NIH woes, the answer is clearly "No". It takes 5-7 years to earn a life sciences PhD, and this wave of new students won't even start graduating until next year, let alone writing R01 grants.
Here's the sobering thing, though: Given that concerns about NIH funding levels have only recently hit the press, it's likely that we will see continuing increases in first-year graduate enrollments through at least 2007. This means increasing numbers of new PhDs for another 6-8 years and probably another decade of sizable increases in the ranks of postdocs. A whole crop of new PhDs is walking right into an already troubled labor market, and things probably won't start to improve for 10+ years. Yikes!
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on Wed, Dec 13, 04:12PM
Geoff,
Once again, another trenchant posting - thank you Geoff!
If we take your prediction at face value - namely that there will be a pulse of fresh domestic Life Sciences PhDs emerging right when the job market is the worst - we have to ask the question: is there anything to be done?
When this happened in the early 90's in the Physical Sciences, the establishment went through the common stages of dealing with uncomfortable news:
- Denial: "You can't tell me the job market is bad - why, my latest PhD student got a great post-doc!"
- Anger: "The people who are complaining about the job market are just whiners who aren't cut out for a career in science!"
- Bargaining: "If I tell my grad students up front that the job market is tough - then they will make an informed decision."
- Depression: "I can't believe my latest grad student took a job with McKinsey! What does that say about her dedication to science - or my ability to inspire her?"
- Acceptance --
Well, that last one I am not sure we really got to in the mid 1990's, because by the time the "system" had acknowledged that there was a problem, the labor market was already in recovery. There were some systemic changes, such as a better administration of post-doctoral appointments, and some greater awareness of the need for career development for grad students and post-docs. But, in general, professors and their departments are still doing the same-old same-old today.
Students, however, HAVE made a change. I base this on my discussions with grad students and post-docs that attend my workshops on career development. In the mid-90's, the entire subject of "non-traditional" careers was somewhat taboo. Grad students showed up to my workshop, lurked in the back of the auditorium, and got skittish if anyone that looked like a faculty member was in the audience.
Today, students I have met are most more, well... Worldly. Many know that there are multiple professional paths post-PhD (though most are anxious about trying to figure out what they are), many have heard of people who have taken non-academic pathways, and the entire subject is no longer verboten. The faculty remain, as far as I can tell, totally absent in this discussion. They never show up at my career workshops. And, they mostly are focused on keeping things going for themselves professionally (which, as you have pointed out Geoff, is getting really hard to do in the life sciences!).
I think another aspect to the economic analysis you raise above (and Freeman did before) is the fact that grad students are not just focused on the monetary economics of the situation, but also (perhaps more so) on the quality of life issue. Writing 10 grant applications for every one that is funded is just NO FUN! Just as we saw in the 1990's, the students in the life sciences today will likely be thirsting for more information about what they can do besides be a miserable professor like their advisor.
So - back to my question: what can be done.
First - to the grad students and post-docs out there today: don't expect that the system is going to help you. It didn't help me or any of my brethren in the early '90's when we got our PhDs! YOU are in charge of your career at this point and nobody cares more than YOU about what happens next. Denial, Anger, Bargaining etc. is going on among grad students and post-docs right now I am sure. YOU need to get to Acceptance as soon as you can.
So - what can you DO about it?
- Get your department or university to organize non-traditional career activities for grad students. You will find the administration much more receptive today than we did in 1995.
- Spend a small but non-zero portion of your work week solely focused on your career path. One professional I spoke to had a rule she followed: the 80:10:10 rule. I talk about it in a recent Opportunities column/12101).
- Talk to people: the best way psychologists have found for people to speed themselves through the difficult process of grieving is by getting them to TALK to one another. Isolation will only prolong your frustration.
I'd be interested in everyone else's thoughts about what can be done to mitigate the looming famine...
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on Wed, Dec 13, 06:12PM
So one interesting piece of the puzzle about what can be done that no-one seems to talk much about is on the demand side. What can be done to grow the market for PhDs? For some fields, I think the answer is "not much". But in the life sciences there are a lot of big opportunities.
A few years ago I attended Startup School, a little boot camp on how to do a start-up. The school is followed by an interesting program to incubate potential startups. Startups are big in IT. Partly it's because it's so easy to start a company -- a few thousand bucks for a computer and a big pile of Top Ramen, and I'm good to go. But partly I think it's cultural. People have been doing it for a long time, the process is pretty well-established, there are lots of good role models / mentors, and it's perfectly acceptable to go out, try something, fail. I think a lot of these ingredients are missing in the life sciences, and it's in that respect that some well-thought-out initiatives could make a real difference.
Sure, you'll get some people whining about money tainting things, about how the purpose of science is to gaze eternally into one's own navel, etc, etc. But it just ain't so. The reason that NSF and NIH and all the rest fund science is to improve the economy and the well-being of the public. Basic research is a part of that, but it's not the whole thing. Don't believe me? Go read Science: The Endless Frontier.
Get more startups out there and (1) you provide a better exit strategy for your students than a terminal master's, (2) you create the potential for some new companies that can hire even more of your students, (3) you get some great technology transfer, much better than some office doing it as an afterthought.
We need to more this discussion to its own article.
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on Mon, Dec 18, 04:12PM
Peter and Geoff,
First of all, great blog, thanks for tackling the work force issues of concern to early and mid career scientists. I agree the gettign your university to invest in alternative career workshops and seminars is a great first step, though I would also point to web resources (phds.org included) that an provide such information as well. Other career sites out there:
Science Alliance - NYC-based division of the New York Academy of Sciences focused on career development of grad stuents and postdocs. Many of their career seminars are immortalized in "e-briefings" that can be downloaded free of charge from their great web site. I took a course through the NYAS called "Idea to IPO" which sounds a lot like the Startup School that you did, Geoff. I think focusing scientists' energy on start ups vice faculty positions is a great idea.
Science Careers and Nature Jobs - career sites run by Science and Nature journals respectively delve into all aspects of career development from graduate school to faculty positions.
Stanford Career Center - In the interest of full disclosure, I recently started writing career advice columns for them and I've been impressed with the coverage and depth with which they provide advice on entering varoius careers. Find mroe at www.stanfordcareercenter.org.
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on Tue, Dec 19, 09:12AM
Hello Flygal--
Yes, there are some good print resources out there, and yes, career workshops are nice as far as that sort of thing goes. These things barely scratch the surface of what could be done. They are bolt-on, after-the-fact band-aids that fail to address the real problem: that people are trained to be and given the expectation that they will be independent researchers in an academic setting.
We need to think differently about the problem. The Professional Science Masters programs that the Sloan Foundation is funding are an interesting alternative model: business ideas and skills are integrated into the curriculum. People have internships in industry, do real projects, etc.
Now imagine a PhD program in which all along this kind of business coursework is available and that somewhere along the way you make a choice to do an academic focus or an industry focus. That then shapes your course requirements and how your thesis work is structured. Or imagine a program that gives postdocs loans for tuition for business school + a stipend with the loans forgiven if, say, the person starts a tech company in the US within N years of graduating (for some suitably small N).
Geoff
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on Tue, Dec 19, 10:12PM
Peter and Geoff: First, I echo those who applaud your new venture. I will be reading. Now to my demur about how you characterized my post over at Effect Measure. I didn't say that the pig in the python problem was from new grad students and post docs coming online. Here is what I said:
"In other words, the increase in funding and facilities encouraged more laboratories and more graduate students and more post docs. Now funding is flat and there is a large encumbered expense. Zerhouni says 80% of the grant money is for ongoing, committed research. Of the 20% available for new grants, with flat funding the only new moneies are from grants that have run their course and not been renewed. Flat funding is in reality a substantial decrease because research expenses greatly exceed inflation as new technologies required to keep a lab competitive come on line."
As the labs get bigger and more work is taken on, the assembly line runs faster and any funding shortfall is felt more quickly. Bigger labs mean more grant proposals to keep them running and more projects. Renewals are needed to keep the students and postdocs past their traineeships and as grants run out they need to be renewed, not by the post docs but by the PIs. I see this happening in my own department (which I chaired for 26 years). The first victims here won't be senior investigators like me. I'm all set. It will be the middle class of researchers, those in their mid to late forties who can't get their grants renewed or new RO1s in time and slip off the tenure track. This affects those below them -- the graduate students and the post docs -- but just as significantly, it affects the next generation of academic leaders, my replacements. Thus this is a double whammy, or triple, if you consider the hams in the middle of the sandwich.
Anyway, keep up the good work. We need more discussion and analysis from your perspective. We are at opposite ends of academic careers so we are bound to see things differently. The discussion will do everyone some good.
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on Wed, Dec 20, 04:12PM
Hello, Revere--
Sorry about the misunderstanding of your post (which I thought was quite interesting).
It's great to hear from people like yourself who are more in the trenches, as Peter and I have both been outside of academia for quite awhile. We have been talking about doing some interviews with people who are thinking about these issues -- might you be willing?
Geoff
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